Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Just some more updates in what I discover with Lion and the battery usage...

deactivating DASHBOARD altogether really helps a lot.

+1

Just upping this. Horrible drainage here as well. MBP 15 i5, 4 GB early 2010. Halfed battery life, clean install of Lion. No apps running. PRAM/SMC/NVRAM/Calibration/Disk permissions checked, no difference.

I think your MBP 15 comes with two graphics cards. IF SO, unplug the power cable and check which graphic card your MBP is using in "About this Mac". If your laptop is still using AMD graphic card,

you might consider installing gfxcardstatus and put your graphic card on "Intergrated Only".

That´s just one of the thousends of solution I have read, but it´s not working. I got gfxcarstatus, I have done all the resetting tricks and so on. Nothing!

My MBP 15 is early 2011 and I used to have 7 hours battery. Now down to 2-3h.

This is a bug Apple have to fix.

I asked about this earlier in the thread and tried all of the fixes to no avail. 

For me, Lion became extinct !!!

I re-downloaded Snow Leopard with the discs that came with my new 6 week old Mac Book Pro.

NOW......Zero Issues.  Fan Quiet, No More Heating Up, And YES, Battery Life is back to normal.  I charged it up Monday to full 100% and did not have to recharge it until today, Thursday.  I was on it aprox. 6+ hours and was asleep the rest which does drop the battery a little.........With Lion, I was getting maybe 2-3 hours MAX and it was losing aprox. 15% battery alseep while I was at work.  Its a PITA that Apple needs to fix. 

I liked snow leopard before, but upgraded because it was recommended I do so since it was the New OS.  Biggest mistake I had made as my new $1300 computer became pretty much useless as a mobile computer.  Had I wanted a computer to leave plugged in, I would have bought a desktop model.

Just on a side note:  I Will Not Upgrade To Lion Again, This Cat Is Down For The Count With Me !!!

OK, I literally received my 15" 2.2GHz 8gb MBP 3 days ago and obviously have been experiencing HORRIBLE battery life, which is naturally what brought me here.  I have read through most of this thread, which to be completely honest some bits are above my head, but can someone please answer me this:  Is this a hardware issue or will this be something that Apple wioll eventually fix via a software update?  i.e. should I send my beautiful brand new machine back during the 90 day no hassle period or what? 

Please Help!

As I promised, here is my "report" after clean install of Lion on MBP 13", May 2011.

I tried two independent installations, one on a brand new 60GB SSD and one on the original 320GB SATA. Every time I'd delete the old partition for start. In both cases I ended up at the same pathetic place where I was after the upgrade, my battery time was reduced to a few hours. At least one dilemma less, there is no difference between upgrade and clean install.

I restored back my SL and I was able to use my Mac for most of the day on a single charge.

@dgf122

Problem is with Software therefore no need to return you Mac. Keep it but replace Lion with Snow Leopard and I'm sure you'll like it and soon or later Apple will come up with the fix (just bit my tongue!!!)

There is another reason to keep your MBP. I don't know any good alternative so you'd be pretty disappointed with any other machine plus all Microsoft Windows excitement. I'm am old PC user and there is nothing even close to MBP in many areas starting from design. Snow Leopard is very good and stable OS that meets most of user requirements.

2011 17'' MBP 2.3 i7, 8GB RAM, SSD

3 hours of just browsing on safari with 40% brightness, keyboard lighting is completely off, only applications running are: MAIL, SAFARI, DATELINE and STEAM (no games on obviously)

is this normal?

It seems to be normal with Lion!  Most of us who updated to Lion got the same. I guess Apple is working hard on a fix!

Darn LION! haha

Thanks, I am utterly disappointed... If only this powerhouse would amazingly last "anywhere near" 6 hours, only if...  I am watching the percentages drop and I'm now forced to turn off the display for percentage or time left, just a battery bar is good enough for me. 

I wonder when the fix would come.. I do need this laptop to run as long as it can at times when I'm unplugged...

Well, Apple has not admitted the problem yet, but I´m sure they know about it. Just sit and wait!

And yes, It´s a good idea to turn off the display for time left. My time was jumping around too all the time... Nerve wracking!

Haha, we are all in the same boat...

By the way, what's a good and reliable Harddrive speed test?

I ran one earlier and got only 150... I thought SSD's are faster than that -_-

However, I geekbenched it and it scored at 11058, any suggestions for the drive test?

I've always been a Windows PC user and spent $1600 on my last dell laptop but this time i just decided to jump onto the Apple boat . i've had this MBR 15 8gb for two months now. It came with SL and the battery life was great (7-8hrs). I didn't have to carry a charger around. This new excitement led me to upgrade to OS Lion which has killed all my excitement since i only get about 2-3 hours of battery life. Even sleep mode uses a lot of battery power. About 20 minutes ago before writing this, my battery life was 100 but with no programs running in the background, i am down to 78% now. I have tried all the fixes suggested her but it's still the same. I need help because my Apple boat is sinking really fast and now i can't wait to jump onto a Windows 8 machine.

Note: Battery is now 75%.

feel you on this..

especially when some of us are paying well $3,000, Apple better fix this!

Also remember that the flash plugin draws a lot of power and battery. So be sure to install Click to flash to block all the flash you dont want and need. I get 5-7 hours battery on a full charge with smb reset PRAM-reset, disk permissions and Click to flash installed. Also remember that promised battery life and real life battery life is two different things, even if apple is one of the most honest companies. Of course, you cant have your screen at 100% brightness and keybord lit and expect 7 hours battery.

Click to flash:

https://extensions.apple.com

And of course, lets hope for better battery life in 10.7.2.